"It is the first time that the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra has undertaken a tour like this, and it will not be easy for it to be repeated," said Katharina Wagner, great-granddaughter of Richard Wagner and director of the Wagnerian festival held every summer in Bavaria, a few weeks ago. The tour in question begins on August 29 at the Palau de la Música, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Peralada Festival, and will then go through Santander, Seville, Valencia, and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. The baton will be held by Pablo Heras-Casado (Granada, 1977), who made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 2023 conducting Parsifal, and where in 2028 he will conduct the complete tetralogy of The Ring of the Nibelung. He is "one of the most recognized international batons currently," as Joan Oller, general director of the Palau de la Música, recalls. Heras-Casado, who retains Catalan from his years of training and work in Catalonia – which he speaks and writes fluently – speaks to ARA by phone during a break from the intense summer activity in Bayreuth.